1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a bale shredding device and more particularly to a device for shredding large cylindrical bales.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, large cylindrical hay bales have become extremely popular. However, the large bales have been found to be difficult to feed to livestock. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,191, a bale shredding device is described wherein a plurality of large bales are positioned on a bale conveyor means with the ends of the bales being arranged in a fore to aft position thereon. In the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,191, the bales on the bale conveyor are moved onto a bale shredding apparatus located at the forward end of the wheeled frame. A pusher assembly was provided to push the bale laterally into a pair of rotating shredding drums.
Although the shredding device of said patent did satisfactorily perform, it has been found that certain disadvantages were present in the prior art device. For example, the bale pusher apparatus of the prior art patent did work satisfactorily but was quite expensive to manufacture. Further, it was found that the twine from the bales being shredded tended to wrap around the supporting shafts for the rotating drums thereby creating a troublesome maintenance problem.